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For SoBo, BMC sucks out dirt to keep waterlogging at bay

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South Mumbai is on its way to be monsoon-ready.

Thanks to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s novel solution to clean age-old drainage pipelines across the island city with hi-tech machines and augment the capacity of the drains during monsoon.

Unclogging the 32-km pipe drains will reduce flooding during heavy rains.For the first time, the BMC is using advanced machines to ensure that not only the silt and muck is sucked out from drains but also it is stored in a tanker attached to it.

No silt would be left piled up on roads, which becomes an eyesore.

The civic body has started using the machines in A, B C and D wards. It is carrying out the work during the night so that traffic is not affected.

The machines, which have high capacity suction plus jetting units with recycling facility, are fixed into manholes. They suck thick muck, silt, stones and sand from the drainage lines.

This was not possible manually as workers could not enter the 10-15 feet deep drains.

“Labourers cannot enter the drains completely as toxic gases are emitted from the waste water.

Now we can do away with all such hurdles and get cleaner drains with the help of hi-tech machines,” said Laxman Vhatkar, director (engineering) of the BMC.

Vhatkar said the civic body was confident that this will augment the drains’ capacity and they will be able to flush out more rain water.

Mithi cleaning
The civic body decided to clean the Mithi river after the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Authority (MMRDA) washed its hands of cleaning portions under its jurisdiction. If Mithi, which constitutes a major portion of the drainage capacity of the city is not cleaned, it would put the city at risk of flooding during heavy rains. Municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte has decided to invoke Disaster Management Act and use the BMC funds to clean parts of Mithi river which is not under the BMC’s jurisdiction. The civic body will spend more than Rs23 crore for cleaning the river.

Shirking work

Earlier, there was evident conflict between the BMC and the MMRDA administration over the cleaning of the Mithi. Corporators across party lines said that the MMRDA should take the onus of cleaning. However, when MMRDA rejected the proposal, BMC suggested that civic body will take up the cleaning work but MMRDA should pay for the services. However, the agency even refused to fund it.

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